My Interview at Frontiere News by Stefano Romano

Dewi Wihardja is an Indonesian girl who was born in Jakarta on December 25, 1984. She came to Italy in August 2011. Now she lives in Lombardy and studies Public and Corporate Communication at University of Milan. Together with the other young students, The Association of Young Ambassadors of Expo 2015 was founded, a project that aims to spread the cultures of participating countries and the messages of sustainability and biodiversity protection, which Expo itself promotes.

When did the idea of Young Ambassadors of Expo 2015 start , and why?

The Idea of Young Ambassadors of Expo 2015 was born in the spring of 2013 when young foreign students in Lombardy were invited to learn about the Expo 2015, which came from a project funded by the FSE (European Social Fund) called “Meeting Lombardy .” Through the foreign students, this Expo 2015 – and the themes promoted such as sustainability and biodiversity protection – can be promoted in the Ambassadors’ countries to their fellow citizens, their families, and their friends.

Now, Young Ambassadors can grow by approaching other young Italian and foreign students, allowing the association to be also for other events and other expo. The concept that drives our commitment is that “As young people, we’re the world’s next generation who must constantly stay alert.” The goal is Milan EXPO 2015, full speed ahead!

What are your goals?

Our main objective is to communicate Expo 2015 to the world, including to all the countries of the Ambassadors. More specifically, we’d like to also convey the important messages included in the themes of Expo 2015: the sustainability of food, nutrition ,and clean water plus biodiversity, considering that there are about 141 participating countries ready to show their alimentary cultures and traditions.

We focus on the messages of Expo 2015 as we notice that until now, the lack of nutritious food and water are still the world’s global issues that must be solved . As we know, there are still about 800 million people in the world who unfortunately can not eat good food and can not even get enough clean water to use and drink.

Expo 2015 will be a crucial event for these issues to find solutions as during the Expo, there will be discussions and workshops about new researches and technologies for achieving the solutions for sustainability of nutritious food and clean water, treatment for diseases, and alimentary distributions. To know more details about our works, follow our Facebook and Twitter. We’ll update you always with transparency and clarity about everything we do and everything we want to do.

Do you think it’s just an experience related to Expo 2015 and or it will go on after the end of Expo 2015? I would say that the Association of Young Ambassadors for Expo 2015 can grow even more with the other young students – foreigners and Italians – and in the future, it could become an association for other events or expo, not only for the Expo 2015. (However, of course for now we prefer to concentrate on the first goal, Expo 2015).

Who are the other Ambassadors ?

For now, we have some ambassadors from Albania – including Renato Mane (University of Brescia) , Elkid Cobani (UNIMI – Biccoca), and Bessiana Yildiz (UNIMI) – Paloma Gomes from Brasil (UNIMI) – Rodrigue Tasse from Cameroon (University of Pavia) – Alexandra Bososchi from Romania (University of Brescia) – Xiao Hong (University of Pavia) and Du Wanlin (UNIMI) from China – and Zhanna Zhumadilova from Kazakhstan (UNIMI). But, we are confident in our potentials for more growth. From Lombardy Region, we’re accompanied by Paolo Pinna and Silvia A.M. Maggi as our supervisors and directors of the association.

What do you miss from your country and what have you found in Italy that’s completely new or different?

I certainly miss my family (my parents , siblings, and nephew plus niece) and my friends. I also miss Indonesian food, since there aren’t many Indonesian restaurants in Italy and there’s none in Milan or Lombardy . I found that there is only one Indonesian restaurant in another region .

In Italy, particularly in Milan, it is as if I had found people from the world. It is a global and multi-cultural city, and I think many other Italian cities are the same, where tourists from all over the world come to visit Italy for its beauty. Moreover, I also like Italian language, more enjoyable to learn if we compare to other languages ​​with non-Latin alphabets. It is also a beautiful, ancient, and historical language plus the mother of the Latin languages​​.

Talking about Italian dishes, they are rich, delicious, and healthy. I could say that Italians have the healthiest food in Europe, or even maybe in the world, together with Japanese food. Here, I can find easily a lot of organic food products, which are healthier, especially during this period of junk food’s frightening growth.